Patterns and size whinge

You would think that knitting or sewing your own garments would guarantee that what you end up with would be a perfect fit. This is not always the case as the patterns I follow do not all tell you exactly what measurements their sizing is meant to fit. So a small often ends up too big from granstudio patterns. I've knitted one thing from Rowan but it was a one size fits all type shrug thing. From Dale I have knitted a lusekofte (a traditional Norwegian type of jumper) and I knitted that in the smallest size and it came out pretty ok, despite my mother repeatedly telling me that it was far too small.

This sizing issue is very annoying. It means that I have to take the recommended tension now let's assume that the knitting tension is 23 x 30st over 10 cm. Now that means that if the measurement at the top of your hips (approx where your hip bones end) is 90cm you will need 23x9 = 207 stitches. Now I do realise that you probably want to knit it a few centimeters bigger than your exact measure ment but it is surprising when I look at the pattern and it claims I need to cast on in the region of 250 stitches. That is plainly going to be a lot bigger than I want (250-207=43stitches so by my calculations by about 20cm or ca 8ins). Even if I do not want a very tight jumper I still don't want to be wearing the wool equivalent of a burlap sack. So to get a jumper that looks like it was knitted for me I have to make a stab at working what number of stitches (assuming I am knitting to gauge) will give me a jumper I will not be swimming in.

I have seen quite a few American and UK charts which appear to give better instructions, but of course Norwegian or at a push Swedish is my preferred knitting language.

The alternative is of course that I start to design my own knitwear from scratch.